Heat
"You came close, close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close, close but no cigar!"
-- Thomas Dolby
There have many situations in my life that could have turned out differently. And there have been some that were eerily close to the fire. By that I mean I have incidentally been in the vicinity of history, only to watch it go right by me. I could feel the heat, or hear the conversations, but only time passing and additional tangential information made me realize what I had witnessed.
Mr. Zog
The front door of Ski-Surf Shop was a few feet from the curb of a busy boulevard leading to the beach a few miles away. During the summer the business was slow, as the owner had long ago decided snow skiing was his future, he no longer shaped or even stocked surf boards. We did however, do a reasonable business in sunglasses, swimwear, sunscreen and other beach accessories.
During the summer weeks I was often the only employee in the store . One day a funky 50's era woody pickup truck pulled up to the curb, and a tall, skinny, ponytailed hippie jumped out. He bounced into the store and asked if he could see the manager.
I said he was sailing around the world in his yacht (being viciously facetious).
"So what are you selling?"
He handed me a small round package wrapped in cellophane. It had a cool looking logo label and the name on it said "Sex Wax".
I looked a little dumbfounded, but I asked,
"What is this?"
"It's surfboard wax. It will give the board a sticky feel so you can maneuver better. It stays on and doesn't stick to your feet. I suggest you put a box right here on the counter, next to the cash register. I guarantee it will sell. They cost you one buck and you sell 'em for two bucks. I will leave a box on consignment, OK? I will be back next week. Tell your boss because he is going to want to order several boxes next week."
If you don't surf, you may not be familiar with the phenomenon of Sex Wax. Two graduates of the University of California at Santa Barbara created and cornered a special interest market with a uniquely packaged paraffin wax formula. Over the years the product has found many other uses. Hockey players use it to coat their sticks, to provide better friction with the puck for finishing shots, and for a better grip to maintain control of the stick. Snowboarders use it to increase boot grip and on the base to reduce snow friction, just as wax is applied to skis. And of course there is a long line of clothing and beach accessories available too.
Originally shaped by pouring the liquid wax into tuna fish cans, the unique shape and titillating name has endured time. One of the first ads that appeared in Surfer Magazine showed Mr. Zog leering over his shoulder while opening an overcoat before two young girls. The tagline read, "Expose yourself to Sex Wax!" You couldn't publish that ad today!
The brainchild of an Orange County born surfer named Robert Herzog, Mr. Zog's Sex Wax is now sold worldwide and Herzog and his biochemist partner Nate Skinner, feathered a nice little retirement nest that continues to this day.
The Rub? I was in no way instrumental in Mr. Zogs' success, other than I didn't throw him and his little package out that day. But it is just another example of being very near a spark that turned into a bonfire.
Burton Snowboards
In 1978 I was working in a tiny vendor booth in the convention center of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, which was the offsite secondary convention for newbies and independent ski industry vendors. The main Ski Industry Association International Ski Convention was always held at the Las Vegas Hilton a few blocks away. Newer manufacturers had to show their wares at the Sands, but it was still a large collection of vendors.
I was selling custom made orthotics for ski boots hoping to garner an exclusive distribution agreement with a French orthotics manufacturer named Sidas. I had a little mold maker that heated the footbeds and formed them into a support system that was inserted into the boot.
That is another story altogether because recently custom made orthotics are all the rage. (Note the ads for The Good Feet Store, a chain of custom arch supports that has become very successful in the past decade. I was then, and still am, convinced many of the ankle, knee and hip injuries folks suffer, could be avoided or at least treated, with properly supported feet).
But I digress…
I shared the booth cost with another young man named Jake Burton who was selling a laminated Snowboard that looked like an oversized skateboard. The user attached their snow boot using a flimsy toe cup, and standing sideways "surfed" down the mountain. He had a little briefcase that opened into a small video player and screen. His sales pitch was showing a video of himself flying down a slope at breakneck speed and it was attracting dozens of curious passerby. He was selling dozens of his "Snowboards'' at $200 each while I was getting nothing!
He had people standing around watching his video, listening to his pitch and lining up to write a check. I kept pitching my ski boot accessory, but folks didn't get what the benefit was. Skiing with boot pain and cramps was just a normal condition. I was proposing a solution to a problem they either didn't have or didn't think could be solved.
Here's The Rub: Jake Burton was an obsessive-compulsive inventor who was also a daredevil. Who in their right mind would buy one of those suicide devices? Boy did I miscalculate that opportunity! I could easily have hooked up with his new business, instead I dismissed it as crazy. He went on to dominate a huge new segment of the winter sports business. Burton products are sold in over 4,000 specialty ski shops all over the world. The current ownership is seeking a buyer and has valued the company at $800M.
Callaway Golf
Early in our marriage, while Cathy was still working in an oral surgeons office, one of the doctors that had an office down the hall won the recently established California Lottery. With his winnings he bought a winery in the Temecula area, just 40 minutes from our home. One Saturday in 1984 we drove up to check it out. We ended up visiting several wineries in the booming new Temecula Wine Valley.
The most impressive was Callaway Winery and Vineyards. We learned how owner Eli Callaway was originally from New York, and after a successful career in the textile industry where he oversaw the development and popularization of polyester blended fabric (panty hose), he retired to start a winery. Established in 1973, his first success came when he managed to have his Riesling served to Queen Elizabeth II at a luncheon in New York. It was reported that she asked for a second glass and a meeting with the vintner.
Soon restaurants all over the country were serving Callaway wines and his success fed the demand for other Temecula area wines. Today the area is a booming tourist attraction of dozens of wineries with spas, restaurants, motorhome parks, and other supporting entertainment venues.
A few months later I was working for McConnell Cabinets and was supervising the installation of a project in Murrieta (just down the road from Callaway Winery) called Bear Creek Tennis Club Villas. It was next to the new Bear Creek Country Club golf course, the first of what would eventually become a series of branded Jack Nicklaus designed courses all over the world.
Some late afternoons, I would sneak out on the brand new practice putting green. The club was just in its infancy, and had very few members, so I introduced myself to the pro. I told him I was the cabinet supplier's rep for the new tennis club condos under construction. I asked for permission to occasionally putz around on the putting green. It was granted.
As I was touring the pro shop I commented on a curious set of pitching wedges he displayed. He told me they were the creation of a couple of local golfers. They were packaged in a black felt-lined oak box. He explained they were steele shafted forged wedges in three different lofts. The shafts were veneered with a thin oak laminate. They were branded as Hickory Sticks. The set sold for about $300, which was a hefty retail price point at that point in time.Ironically, the inventors were about to hold a meeting out on the putting green so he warned me to keep my distance.
I quietly listened in as five men tested and admired the set of expensive, collector clubs. I putted around and thought nothing of it except that I wondered, why would anyone want or need a pitching wedge with a fake wooden shaft?
Here's The Rub: The five men on the putting green that afternoon were discussing the sale of the little specialty wedge company named Hickory Sticks USA. Two of those men were Eli Callaway and his son, who went on to buy Hickory Sticks and turn it into Callaway Golf. I was present at the birth of what would become the most iconic brand of innovative golf equipment in the history of the sport.
Many years later I was working for a small regional golf magazine, and I interviewed a man named Dick De La Cruz for a story about a new manufacturing innovation he was pioneering. He was one of the original owners of Hickory Sticks and he confirmed my story about the meeting at Bear Creek Golf Club. He, too, was there that day. As part of the deal he became the VP of manufacturing for Callaway Golf Company.
Later, NBC TV held the third edition of the television program The Skins Game at Bear Creek Country Club. The tennis villas where we (McConnell Cabinets) had recently installed cabinets, were not yet occupied by their new owners, so the developers agreed to let the visiting professional golfers (Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Fuzzy Zellor and Tom Watson) and their entourage stay in some of the newly completed units.
The night before the tournament a water main broke and the units were flooded, forcing the icons of golf to flee to a nearby Motel 6. I heard Jack Nicklaus was furious! McConnell Cabinets, on the other hand, received a new purchase order to replace the cabinets in three of the new units.
I can brag that I won the cabinet contract for Jack Nicklaus's first residential real estate development! The Nicklaus Development Company had to ask me for a Mulligan on the very first order…Ha!
My Vital Interests
During my days working in the Wildcat Door Systems office, I had a computer in front of me. I used email to send out inquiries and contract proposals, and Rob used it for all of his bookkeeping chores. But there were down times, so I played with it trying to understand the technology.
In 1998 I came up with an idea…what if there was a place on the internet where people could share their interests? I didn't know if it was practical, let alone how it would actually be made to work. I had a very rudimentary understanding of how the internet worked.
I called my website MyVitalInterests.com…The tagline was "The 4F Club For Humans". It had pages to share thoughts about Family, Faith, Finances, and Fun: Links to government services, chat rooms and bulletin boards, local entertainment venues and restaurants. I drew up a mock page and fantasized about what a wonderful tool the internet might someday be for social purposes.
The Rub? MySpace wasn't introduced until 2003 and FaceBook came out in 2005. Too bad I had no computer geek friends in that industry that could help me make my idea into a juggernaut and all of us into multi-billionaires.
***
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close, close but no cigar!"
-- Thomas Dolby
There have many situations in my life that could have turned out differently. And there have been some that were eerily close to the fire. By that I mean I have incidentally been in the vicinity of history, only to watch it go right by me. I could feel the heat, or hear the conversations, but only time passing and additional tangential information made me realize what I had witnessed.
Mr. Zog
The front door of Ski-Surf Shop was a few feet from the curb of a busy boulevard leading to the beach a few miles away. During the summer the business was slow, as the owner had long ago decided snow skiing was his future, he no longer shaped or even stocked surf boards. We did however, do a reasonable business in sunglasses, swimwear, sunscreen and other beach accessories.
During the summer weeks I was often the only employee in the store . One day a funky 50's era woody pickup truck pulled up to the curb, and a tall, skinny, ponytailed hippie jumped out. He bounced into the store and asked if he could see the manager.
I said he was sailing around the world in his yacht (being viciously facetious).
"So what are you selling?"
He handed me a small round package wrapped in cellophane. It had a cool looking logo label and the name on it said "Sex Wax".
I looked a little dumbfounded, but I asked,
"What is this?"
"It's surfboard wax. It will give the board a sticky feel so you can maneuver better. It stays on and doesn't stick to your feet. I suggest you put a box right here on the counter, next to the cash register. I guarantee it will sell. They cost you one buck and you sell 'em for two bucks. I will leave a box on consignment, OK? I will be back next week. Tell your boss because he is going to want to order several boxes next week."
If you don't surf, you may not be familiar with the phenomenon of Sex Wax. Two graduates of the University of California at Santa Barbara created and cornered a special interest market with a uniquely packaged paraffin wax formula. Over the years the product has found many other uses. Hockey players use it to coat their sticks, to provide better friction with the puck for finishing shots, and for a better grip to maintain control of the stick. Snowboarders use it to increase boot grip and on the base to reduce snow friction, just as wax is applied to skis. And of course there is a long line of clothing and beach accessories available too.
Originally shaped by pouring the liquid wax into tuna fish cans, the unique shape and titillating name has endured time. One of the first ads that appeared in Surfer Magazine showed Mr. Zog leering over his shoulder while opening an overcoat before two young girls. The tagline read, "Expose yourself to Sex Wax!" You couldn't publish that ad today!
The brainchild of an Orange County born surfer named Robert Herzog, Mr. Zog's Sex Wax is now sold worldwide and Herzog and his biochemist partner Nate Skinner, feathered a nice little retirement nest that continues to this day.
The Rub? I was in no way instrumental in Mr. Zogs' success, other than I didn't throw him and his little package out that day. But it is just another example of being very near a spark that turned into a bonfire.
Burton Snowboards
In 1978 I was working in a tiny vendor booth in the convention center of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, which was the offsite secondary convention for newbies and independent ski industry vendors. The main Ski Industry Association International Ski Convention was always held at the Las Vegas Hilton a few blocks away. Newer manufacturers had to show their wares at the Sands, but it was still a large collection of vendors.
I was selling custom made orthotics for ski boots hoping to garner an exclusive distribution agreement with a French orthotics manufacturer named Sidas. I had a little mold maker that heated the footbeds and formed them into a support system that was inserted into the boot.
That is another story altogether because recently custom made orthotics are all the rage. (Note the ads for The Good Feet Store, a chain of custom arch supports that has become very successful in the past decade. I was then, and still am, convinced many of the ankle, knee and hip injuries folks suffer, could be avoided or at least treated, with properly supported feet).
But I digress…
I shared the booth cost with another young man named Jake Burton who was selling a laminated Snowboard that looked like an oversized skateboard. The user attached their snow boot using a flimsy toe cup, and standing sideways "surfed" down the mountain. He had a little briefcase that opened into a small video player and screen. His sales pitch was showing a video of himself flying down a slope at breakneck speed and it was attracting dozens of curious passerby. He was selling dozens of his "Snowboards'' at $200 each while I was getting nothing!
He had people standing around watching his video, listening to his pitch and lining up to write a check. I kept pitching my ski boot accessory, but folks didn't get what the benefit was. Skiing with boot pain and cramps was just a normal condition. I was proposing a solution to a problem they either didn't have or didn't think could be solved.
Here's The Rub: Jake Burton was an obsessive-compulsive inventor who was also a daredevil. Who in their right mind would buy one of those suicide devices? Boy did I miscalculate that opportunity! I could easily have hooked up with his new business, instead I dismissed it as crazy. He went on to dominate a huge new segment of the winter sports business. Burton products are sold in over 4,000 specialty ski shops all over the world. The current ownership is seeking a buyer and has valued the company at $800M.
Callaway Golf
Early in our marriage, while Cathy was still working in an oral surgeons office, one of the doctors that had an office down the hall won the recently established California Lottery. With his winnings he bought a winery in the Temecula area, just 40 minutes from our home. One Saturday in 1984 we drove up to check it out. We ended up visiting several wineries in the booming new Temecula Wine Valley.
The most impressive was Callaway Winery and Vineyards. We learned how owner Eli Callaway was originally from New York, and after a successful career in the textile industry where he oversaw the development and popularization of polyester blended fabric (panty hose), he retired to start a winery. Established in 1973, his first success came when he managed to have his Riesling served to Queen Elizabeth II at a luncheon in New York. It was reported that she asked for a second glass and a meeting with the vintner.
Soon restaurants all over the country were serving Callaway wines and his success fed the demand for other Temecula area wines. Today the area is a booming tourist attraction of dozens of wineries with spas, restaurants, motorhome parks, and other supporting entertainment venues.
A few months later I was working for McConnell Cabinets and was supervising the installation of a project in Murrieta (just down the road from Callaway Winery) called Bear Creek Tennis Club Villas. It was next to the new Bear Creek Country Club golf course, the first of what would eventually become a series of branded Jack Nicklaus designed courses all over the world.
Some late afternoons, I would sneak out on the brand new practice putting green. The club was just in its infancy, and had very few members, so I introduced myself to the pro. I told him I was the cabinet supplier's rep for the new tennis club condos under construction. I asked for permission to occasionally putz around on the putting green. It was granted.
As I was touring the pro shop I commented on a curious set of pitching wedges he displayed. He told me they were the creation of a couple of local golfers. They were packaged in a black felt-lined oak box. He explained they were steele shafted forged wedges in three different lofts. The shafts were veneered with a thin oak laminate. They were branded as Hickory Sticks. The set sold for about $300, which was a hefty retail price point at that point in time.Ironically, the inventors were about to hold a meeting out on the putting green so he warned me to keep my distance.
I quietly listened in as five men tested and admired the set of expensive, collector clubs. I putted around and thought nothing of it except that I wondered, why would anyone want or need a pitching wedge with a fake wooden shaft?
Here's The Rub: The five men on the putting green that afternoon were discussing the sale of the little specialty wedge company named Hickory Sticks USA. Two of those men were Eli Callaway and his son, who went on to buy Hickory Sticks and turn it into Callaway Golf. I was present at the birth of what would become the most iconic brand of innovative golf equipment in the history of the sport.
Many years later I was working for a small regional golf magazine, and I interviewed a man named Dick De La Cruz for a story about a new manufacturing innovation he was pioneering. He was one of the original owners of Hickory Sticks and he confirmed my story about the meeting at Bear Creek Golf Club. He, too, was there that day. As part of the deal he became the VP of manufacturing for Callaway Golf Company.
Later, NBC TV held the third edition of the television program The Skins Game at Bear Creek Country Club. The tennis villas where we (McConnell Cabinets) had recently installed cabinets, were not yet occupied by their new owners, so the developers agreed to let the visiting professional golfers (Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Fuzzy Zellor and Tom Watson) and their entourage stay in some of the newly completed units.
The night before the tournament a water main broke and the units were flooded, forcing the icons of golf to flee to a nearby Motel 6. I heard Jack Nicklaus was furious! McConnell Cabinets, on the other hand, received a new purchase order to replace the cabinets in three of the new units.
I can brag that I won the cabinet contract for Jack Nicklaus's first residential real estate development! The Nicklaus Development Company had to ask me for a Mulligan on the very first order…Ha!
My Vital Interests
During my days working in the Wildcat Door Systems office, I had a computer in front of me. I used email to send out inquiries and contract proposals, and Rob used it for all of his bookkeeping chores. But there were down times, so I played with it trying to understand the technology.
In 1998 I came up with an idea…what if there was a place on the internet where people could share their interests? I didn't know if it was practical, let alone how it would actually be made to work. I had a very rudimentary understanding of how the internet worked.
I called my website MyVitalInterests.com…The tagline was "The 4F Club For Humans". It had pages to share thoughts about Family, Faith, Finances, and Fun: Links to government services, chat rooms and bulletin boards, local entertainment venues and restaurants. I drew up a mock page and fantasized about what a wonderful tool the internet might someday be for social purposes.
The Rub? MySpace wasn't introduced until 2003 and FaceBook came out in 2005. Too bad I had no computer geek friends in that industry that could help me make my idea into a juggernaut and all of us into multi-billionaires.
***